Word: tigers
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...Carter and most of Yates' other neighbors did not know about Ming. Even in a city in which residents pride themselves on taking things in stride, a 425-lb. tiger in a fifth-floor apartment is a bit much. "How the hell did he keep it around here so damn long?" wonders Theodore Dixon, another neighbor. "What if he'd opened the door and it ran out? There are kids in this building. It probably would have bit them." In the end, it was Yates who was bitten, and although he first claimed that he had been attacked...
Except that it isn't. This month brought three tiger attacks in less than a week: on Yates; on Las Vegas showman Roy Horn, 59, who was mauled within an inch of his life before an audience of 1,500 at the Mirage hotel; and on Sarah Roy, 21, a trainer at the Keepers of the Wild animal sanctuary in Golden Valley, Ariz. While it might sound like a bizarre coincidence, the fact is that tiger attacks are not all that rare in the U.S. Between 1998 and 2001, according to a study by Philip Nyhus of Franklin & Marshall College...
These numbers are not all that surprising, considering that there may be as many as 10,000 tigers in private hands in the U.S., many of them kept as pets. That is twice the estimated 5,000 or so left in the wild. In addition, Americans keep many thousands of other big cats, primarily lions and cougars. People own big cats for all sorts of reasons. Machismo is one: a tiger makes the nastiest Doberman seem like a yipping Chihuahua. Some people believe owning a tiger helps preserve an endangered species. And a tiger cub, at least, is downright adorable...
...also ridiculously easy to get your hands on one. The Endangered Species Act and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species make it illegal to import a wild tiger. But there is no need to import one, says Nicole Paquette, legal-affairs director for the Animal Protection Institute in Sacramento, Calif.: "Tigers reproduce easily, and there are plenty of backyard breeders producing cubs. They're like puppy mills." Anyone who wants a tiger can go to an alternative-livestock auction. Or if that is too much trouble, they can just surf the Web, where large-scale breeding operations...
...lots of places, it is perfectly legal to own a tiger as a pet. If you put it on display, you would need a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture plus any that are required in that state. But no federal law prevents you from having a pet tiger, and only 20 states forbid big-cat ownership entirely (though many cities, including New York, do have local bans). A bill before the U.S. Senate would ban interstate and foreign commerce in big cats, except for circuses, zoos and other facilities like wildlife sanctuaries. But even that would not prohibit...